When we were assigned to choose our favorite blog in the first weeks of class, I chose Dean's Corner. I occasionally looked at it if I ran out of ideas for my blogs but I just recently read the author’s profile again. The author, Dr. Jeffrey H. Toney is the dean at the College of Natural, Applied and Heath Sciences at Kean University. The next sentence says, “He is dedicated to strengthening public appreciation of the beauty and impact of science in our daily lives.” Wow!! Little did I know this was what we were going to be focusing on this whole semester. He has published articles in several newspapers (including the New York Times) and blog news sites. I’m not sure if he does any public speaking but he is definitely good at writing his articles to make people interested. In addition to trying to communicate science, he has 60 peer-reviewed scientific publications and holds six US patents. He finds little tid-bits of science stories that are interesting and relatable. No wonder his blog caught my eye even when I was untrained in looking for blogs.
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| Sputnik I |
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| BP Oil Spill: 2010 |
He re-posted an article he wrote about the BP oil spill last summer (published in OpEdNews on June 29 2010). He stated that we should use this oil spill like we used Sputnik I: to promote an explosion in science and mathematics education in the US. It could also foster support for research and development of alternative fuels.
Has this happened? Personally, I don’t know. I don’t have the time (or TV) to follow politics so I’m not sure what kind of policies are going circling in DC. If anyone cares to read the article and tell me your thoughts about this I would be interested to hear what you think. Were his observations and predictions correct or just wishful thinking?
Thank you for your kind words. By coincidence, I gave a lecture on science journalism, as part of a Howard Hughes Medical Institute grant:
ReplyDelete“Why Would a Scientist Blog?” University of Missouri School of Journalism and Bond Life Center, Life Sciences Week, “SciXchange: Science and New Media,” Columbia, MO (April 22)
http://hhmi.missouri.edu/
I welcome any thoughtful comments you could post at "Dean's Corner."
What is the course that you are taking?
@ Toney, Thank you for reading my blog. I am in a Communicating Science class at Colorado School of Mines. It has been a little hard for us to get used to this idea of communicating science since almost all of us are engineers, not scientists. However, we have definitely learned the importance of the media when we are trying to "sell" a somewhat controversial piece of technology to the public. We have one week of class left and so I can't promise that I will continue posting on my blog but I hope to continue to follow yours and some other similar interesting ones. Thanks again
ReplyDeleteCool that Jeff posted on your blog, Michelle, and nice response to him. I think he's a good example of how we might communicate to the public, and of why it's important. Perhaps I'll use his article next year ;).
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